Saturday, November 30, 2013.  When I was preparing for the Camino, I was making lists of things to take on the trip, partially based on the books I was reading about and by other Camino pilgrims.  “Take something meaningful from home . . . ” said one.  Well, I looked lovingly at the pocket goddesses Neil has bought for me over the years, bronze woman-shapes that fit in your hand.  They are so special and adorn my bedroom dresser.  But the constantly growing awareness of weight in my backpack required that I discard any notion of taking a small bronze goddess who weighed at least a pound.

In close proximity to the goddesses I spotted this.  A light-weight wooden star, created by a Vermont artist, Meta Strick, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at an Artisan Fair in Manchester, Vermont about 10 years ago.  I had purchased many of her little goodies, all with calligraphy sayings or words on them.  “Create!”  “Solitude!”  “Artist working HERE”.  And this favorite from Gertrude Stein:  “What is the question?”

It seemed a perfect thing to take, especially since I had to keep trying to answer my friends, who asked, “Why are you going?”  “What made you decide to do this?”  And I continued to say, “I saw the movie, The Way.  Otherwise, I have no idea.”  As I’ve written on this website previously, the typical response I got was, “Oh, you’ll know soon enough (or when you get there . . . or when you are in Santiago, etc.).”  I see that I still have no ability or desire to come up with an answer.  There is a finality to answers, some of which we must have, and others for which we should not even search.  I have a relative who always says, “The TRUTH is . . . ” and then pontificates.  What that relative says is most often nowhere close to the truth.  There are many versions of the truth, but perhaps for things like “1 + 1 = 2”, and even then, perhaps a mathematician could try to dispute this truth.  But that’s for another century.  I have no interest in it.

I’m grateful for every minute, every second, of my Camino experience.  The exhaustion, frustration, curiosity, exhilaration, and everything in between were gifts, pure and simple.  I gave those gifts to myself.  The Camino gave them to me.  My partner and children, sisters and friends gave them to me. My body gave them to me.  And everyone with whom I spoke on the trail, every person who said, “Buen Camino” to me as they passed me or as I passed them, gave these gifts to me.  But I asked for no answers from any of them . . . and gave them none in return.

My conclusion, at least for myself, is that there are often only the questions, whether we like it or not.  The question itself encourages contemplation, consideration, communion with one’s Self.  As Rainer Maria Rilke writes so exquisitely . . . live the questions now.

I’ve thought quite a bit about writing a “closure” piece, both while I was on the Camino and since I’ve returned home.  What I know more clearly now than I ever have before is that at least for this experience, the “closure” is learning (yet again) to remain open.  To find silence whenever possible.  To stop the brain from reeling in the chaos of daily life.  To arrange for part of a day where there is nothing to do but sit with myself.

The “answer”, I’ve learned, is not to look too hard for an answer . . . the questions, the silence between questions, and all the bits and pieces of this experience are held together in a sort of snow-globe-container with wide boundaries.  I can shake it up, watch the details of my Camino memories, or my daily life, for that matter, float down in front of me, around me. The joy, determination, exhaustion, sense of majesty and accomplishment just make me shine with gratitude, make me want to go back and do it again . . .not with a plan to “do it better”, but rather with pure desire to be on the path once more.